


Towards Winter's End

by Thursday_Next



Category: Blood Feud - Rosemary Sutcliff
Genre: Canon Era, First Time, M/M, Vikings, Yuletide, Yuletide 2012
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 17:21:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/600252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thursday_Next/pseuds/Thursday_Next
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jestyn feels sorry for the Emperor's sister, to be married to a man with so many wives already. Thormod tries to understand why, leading to a confession of sorts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Towards Winter's End

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Carmarthen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carmarthen/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, Carmarthen.

_Once, towards winter's end, a supply train got through to us, with dispatches for the Commander, and news that got loose and ran from camp fire to camp fire in a gale of laughter._

_Basil, it seemed, had listened to the tears and pleading of his sister the Princess Anna, and tried to back out of his bargain with Khan Vladimir. But at the first hint of delay about sending him his promised bride, Vladimir had seized the Byzantine port of Cherson on the Inland Sea, and threatened to do the same to Miklagard itself. 'So our Basil has had to give in and hand the lady over for all her tears,' said one of the supply-wagon men, sitting at our fire._

_I laughed with the rest, but I was still sorry for the Princess Anna._ \-- Blood Feud

 

"I am still sorry for the Princess," I muttered stubbornly, "To be married to a man with so many wives already." Orm, next to me, laughed all the more, the wine drenching his full beard. 

"Happen the young pup has a fancy for the Emperor's sister himself," he guffawed, clapping me on the shoulder and setting off a new round of shouts from around the fire. I laughed along with them, shaking my head and wishing I had said nothing; I had no wish to be the centre of their ribald attention. But the damage was done.

"Na, I've not seen young Jestyn so much as dip his wick with a camp follower as long as I've known him," Geir, another of the Norsemen said.

Against my will, almost, my eyes found Thormod across the fire. His face betrayed no expression and he made no move to speak, although he of all of them knew I had not lain with a woman even long before we joined the Emperor's Guard. 

"Perhaps he keeps himself true for some wench back in Ireland," suggested another voice. There were men here from dozens of places and I suppose for some of them Britain and Ireland were as close as made no difference. With my dark hair and pale skin I suppose I looked as much like an Irishman as anything else. It seemed strange, still, to think that the distinctions that had marked my childhood between Saxon and Cornishman mattered not at all any more.

"She'll not have waited for you this long, mark my words," said Geir. 

"Perhaps he prefers the company of cattle," snorted the other. I flushed angrily at the implication of such an abomination, though I knew well it was meant only in jest. In truth, I had not lain with woman nor man nor beast at any time in my life, though I had no desire to say as much aloud.

Orm must have taken pity on me with my reddening cheeks, for he slung an arm around my shoulder.

"Funny ideas you and your Kristini have, only one god in your temples and only one woman in your beds." It was an insult to my kind, true, but meant as a close to the conversation and I was grateful for it. I had learned, in my time among the Norsemen, to see that sometimes there could be a depth of kindness in words that on the surface seemed brusque. 

I stayed for another pass-round of the wine jar, before slinking away from the fire with the excuse that I had drank enough and needed to make water. In truth, I needed a moment or two to clear my head, away from all the chatter which had turned to heated words about the trustworthiness of the Emperor's guard.

I had not got far from the fires before I realised that I was being followed. Although Anders had not been seen in some time, and would likely not be lurking around out in the midst of this war in any case, I had learned to be always wary, especially walking alone. My hand tightened around the bone handle of my knife, my ears pricked and my shoulders tensed.

"Stand down, Jestyn," came a voice from the shadows and I relaxed my grip for it was a voice I knew well. Thormod drew forwards and fell into step with me. We walked in silence for a time, as was our way, nothing more needed but the sound of our footfalls and the mist of our breaths mingling together in the night air. There was a question hanging on my lips this night, though Thormod was the one to question me first.

"You believe this, then?" Thormod said at last, a furrow between his brows, "This idea of your god that a man should lie with only woman."

I shook my head; how could I agree to such a statement, knowing what unvoiced longings lay in my own heart? My own desires were not such as would be sanctioned by those priests who had preached against the midwinter fires, I felt sure.

"You surely don't think these men are faithful to their wives, if they have them, so many years away from home."

"Of course not," I said, feeling foolish. I well knew they were not. I well knew, too, that Thormod would go often enough with the others in search of female company. At times he would return to our sleeping place with the smell of sweat and musk and unfamiliar floral scents clinging to him. On those nights I would find it hard to sleep, a dull twisting thing like a clawing wolf within my belly. 

"And yet you object in the name of your god."

It was never an easy thing to know what Thormod might be thinking, but I thought that it was that he was trying to understand a little of my faith, my culture. It was a small thing, after every time I had abandoned my own beliefs for the Norse traditions, following him. Always following him. And though it was a small thing, and late, it touched me greatly. And perhaps it was that, as much as the mead I had drunk that evening that made my tongue loose. 

"It is not so much that," I said. "It is – if you have somebody that you love --" my tongue stumbled over the word, it not being one I had had cause to say aloud in many years. "Your people believe in honour, in keeping to a vow," I tried, changing tack. Thormod's brow furrowed further, and I knew without his saying it that for the Norsemen, vows and honour were things among men. It was an ill thing to take another man's wife, but no shame for a married man to consort with other women. "My people make a vow of fidelity, when they wed."

"You and I, though," he said, "we have made no such vows."

"No," I said, a little helplessly, for there were no words to explain that I had made a vow to him, in my heart, no less sacred to me than the one I had made with words and blood in Svensdale.

"And yet --" Here he halted, in his words and his step both. "You do not seek out women. And you do not like it, when I do."

I felt the heat rush to my face as though I were wrapped in furs before a fire in summer. I did not realise I had hidden my feelings so badly. I turned to look at him where he stood, as he sought an answer in the crease of my forehead, in the lips that moved but could find no words to explain. I do not know to this day whether it was the ale running through my blood that made me so bold, or the fact that he had taken this first step in asking, or simply the way the bright of the moon fell upon his pale hair. But bold I became, reaching up to rest my hand on his shoulder, my thumb brushing the smooth skin at the hollow of his collarbone. He stood, immobile, impassive as I pressed my lips hard against his own. 

I drew back and blinked, a little astonished at myself. Thormod lifted a gloved hand and rubbed along the seam of his lips with his thumb, whether equally astonished or seeking to erase all traces of the kiss, I could not tell. 

"So that is the way of it," he said at last, giving nothing away.

"Aye," I said, for there seemed little point in denying it further. There may, I confess, have been an edge of bitterness to it. My heart thrummed in my chest at the thought that perhaps it could end like this, not in a battle or a holm-ganging. That he might strike me down for the insult, or – perhaps worse – send me away from him.

I think I made some motion to leave, for his hand shot out and closed around my wrist; the same wrist I had cut and pressed to his what seemed a lifetime ago. 

"Come," was all he said, and I followed, as I always would. I hardly knew where it was he took me, or how long it took for us to reach it, far enough from the camp that we would not be seen. All of a sudden I found myself pinned to a tree, rough bark at my back, cornered as though in a fight, my blood up in an instant. 

It reminded me of that time in Dublin but that now, when Thormod pressed against me it was chest to chest we stood, rather than shoulder to shoulder. His lips, rough and chapped, pressed against mine and my mouth opened to his. It was all heat, with a hint of teeth, and a rumble from Thormod's throat that might have been a groan or a snarl. He held my wrist, still, although I do not know why, I would not have wished to run. My free hand I managed to work inside his sark, scrabbling at the skin beneath. His teeth grazed the skin at my jaw and I confess I may have let out a sound akin to a whine. This was new to me, all of it, and long desired. 

It seemed that it may not have been as new to Thormod, though, for his hands were sure and steady on the laces of my breeches even as my own shook as they fumbled with those on his. His hands on me were rough and cold, while I felt hot all over as if taken by a fever. Like a fever, too, what happened then between us passed in a blur of heat and slick skin and frantic thrusting. He took me on my knees as I near bit a chunk from my thumb to stifle my cries. Thormod's groans were muffled against my shoulder. He was not gentle with me, but I did not expect otherwise. It was not how I would have had it, rushed and rough, out in the cold with spring barely breaking winter's grip; I would have wished the chance to show him something of the tenderness my heart held for him. But perhaps that would not have been wise, and I was almost glad, in the end, for the edge of discomfort that kept those gentler feelings at bay.

It was over almost as quickly as it had begun, it seemed, and we pulled up our clothes in silence, brushing twigs and dried mud from our skin. I felt my knees quake as they had not in even the bloodiest of battles as I rose. I hardly dared to meet Thormod's gaze, unwilling to see in it pity or disgust, or even the kindness of a friend. But in any case, he did not look in my direction. As ever, I could not tell what he might be thinking.

Thormod said not a word, but as we neared the camp once more, distant voices and laughter drifitng towards us on the wind, he grabbed my wrist once more, a swift sure pressure of fingers against the place of the old scar. Our eyes met, fleetingly, a searing look that was something like an acknowledgement, if not quite a declaration. He dropped his gaze and his hold on my arm both quickly enough that it might never have happened at all, and he did not speak a word to me as we rejoined the others. 

But I thought I knew what the gesture was meant to say; that perhaps that was the way of it for him, too.


End file.
